Truman and Oppenheimer met once, on October 25, 1945. The meeting is dramatized in the Oppenheimer movie, with Gary Oldman giving a spot on portrayal of the man from Independence. It is hard to imagine two men more different: the Baptist politician, scion of hardscrabble farmers, and noted for his bluntness and earthiness, and his intense love for his wife and practical politics, and the non-observant Jewish nuclear physicist, scion of intellectuals and entrepreneurs, noted for his scientific brilliance, his messy personal life, and his taste for poetry about religion. The interview went convivially enough until Oppenheimer said to the President that he felt like there was blood on his, Oppenheimer’s, hands. The words of Truman have been embellished and exaggerated over the years, but the gist of Truman’s response was to take out his handkerchief and tell Oppenheimer to wipe the blood from his hands and that the responsibility was Truman’s and Truman’s alone. Truman, like most men of his World War I generation, did not like dealing with displays of emotion, and ordered that Oppenheimer never be allowed to see him again, He referred to Oppenheimer in a letter in May of 1946 to Secretary of State Dean Acheson as a “crybaby scientist”, and said on other occasions that Oppenheimer’s responsibility as to the bombings was as nothing compared to his. The buck stops here indeed.
“Seems to me if there is a moral point of no return, you’ve long since passed it.”
shakes head I have long found such appraisal… annoying at best, deceived at worst. Too often, we overstate our own guilt. It’s good for us to carefully examine our actions and motives; not so good to chastise ourselves for acting as we needed. Perhaps Ross mostly sought to confirm to Truman that Truman had cause for disquiet.
“…You clinch the victory in the Pacific, …but you sew the whirlwind.”
Warfare tends to be that way..
Leadership decisions of weight rarely come easy.
Leadership decisions of weight rarely come easy.
Correct, especially in war when it is usually a choice between the bad and the worse.
This is a good video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvthaMD5U1E
I need to correct a statement in the Whittle video about Hirohito and the surrender. There was a coup, but the people involved in the coup were searching for the recordings of the surrender that were to be played on the radio. The people who say that we should have done a demo drop need to look at what happened in the post-war drop of an a bomb during Operation Crossroads. It was the Abel test. The press was invited. The bomb missed its aim point by 2,130 feet causing less damage than expected. It received mixed press reviews.
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As Whittle presents, many of the claims made by people who are anti-use do not agree with the history. Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were involved with the Japanese war effort and were legitimate military targets. From documentaries that I’ve seen the Japanese military had both the will and the armaments to have made a land invasion costly. The Japanese military wanted a land invasion bloodbath. The occupation after the war was a tense period at first. The Japanese had a large number of troops posted off the mainland that had to be demobilized and transported back to Japan after the war. Hirohito had to send personal envoys to insure that the military complied with the surrender.
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A great, if long, video about this is on the Military History Visualized YouTube Channel. “D.M. Giangreco on the Invasion of Japan, Lend Lease & much more” It has timestamps for those who want to jump around between topics. He points out that the Japanese military did not take a Eurocentric view of the war. They had a totally different mindset.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4uDfg38gyk
If one American life was saved by the A bomb, it is worth everything. Hirohito’s war came home. What did he expec?
Hirohito wanted to attack and enslave the USA but failed.
Hitler wanted to use Britain as a stepping stone to enslave the USA.
Why did so many individuals want to die for a lie from Hitler and Hirohito? Scuttleling their sovereign personhood for a power play that failed? Why not play Monopoly?
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are free from atomic fallout since the A bombs were detonated above the cities. The citizens were warned. Better than the back stabbing at Pearl Harbor by the japs.
If you do not want war do not start war.
[…] Minority Report Oppenheimer Speaks – Donald R. McClarey, J.D., at The American Catholic Wipe the Blood Off Your Hands – Donald R. McClarey, J.D., at The American […]
Either “just following orders” is an excuse for everything, or it isn’t.
One way or another, it takes more than the handkerchief of a head of state to wipe away the stain of sin, and it will scarcely make the fires of hell less hot to know that they are hotter for your boss.
“The moral of this story please attend to very well:
Exactly who the devil is is often hard to tell.
He may be short and ugly, or he may be fair and tall;
He may just be the man for whom you voted in the fall.”